Neon Sands Trilogy Boxset: The Neon Series Season One

by Adam J. Smith

  Calix shuffled the excavator bucket across, away from the dome, and examined the readings. “It goes on for a bit longer, then stops,” he said. “Looks like a path from up here.”

  “Too low to be a path. We’re a few metres beneath the hardtop surface. This bit was underground.”

  “I guess you’re right. Assuming the Agridome layout.”

  “Am I near the edge?” Caia swept left and right, cleansing an arc of metal and sand as she walked along the ‘path.’

  “Almost. You really think they’re hoverbikes?”

  “I don’t know. What are they up to?”

  Calix glanced over. “Look to be taking one apart or something.”

  “Well then I guess we’ll find out.”

  “Kirillion always said don’t believe everything you see in the films. But some films had hoverbikes. He said they were make-believe.”

  “The hoverbikes in particular or just everything else?”

  Calix scratched at his beard. “Well I just took it as most things.”

  “This world is a dead world, kid...” said Caia.

  “You ain’t much older than me, kid...” said Calix, adjusting his seat position.

  “I got a few years on you, and in sand years, it might as well be a thousand. All I’m saying is why shouldn’t everything in the films be real? This world is gone, but those films show how it once was. And if those are hoverbikes... you can’t assume anything is gone forever. You don’t know what’s just waiting to be found again.”

  The sand from below now swarmed in the air around the crawler. Calix lifted his scarf to his mouth. “So Kirillion was lying?”

  “Kirillion tells you what you need to know. How much more, Cal? Should I rest?”

  “Nearly there.”

  “You hold one of these things yet?”

  “Not without pain.”

  “Idiot. Hey, I have something.”

  “Hmmm, I can’t see, you’ve gone out of sight.” Calix shifted the right track into reverse to spin the crawler around for a better look. Caia had hit a wall of metal, and was removing the sand from around it, revealing a square pipe with a hatch on top. “We could’ve rolled right over that and smashed it.”

  “Maybe,” said Caia. “Something this big though should’ve stopped us in our tracks with the detector. What’s it look like to you up there?”

  “It’s an entrance. Guess you can’t see it from where you’re standing, but there’s a hatch on the top.”

  She dropped the blower and then jumped, arms up, the straggled ends of her hemp jacket and scarf loosely flying. Her long braided hair followed, landing across her shoulder. She failed but shrugged her shoulders for another attempt.

  “Shall I tell the others?”

  “If you want. Probably too busy figuring out the bike thing.”

  “You nearly made it before, just another foot I’d say.” He watched as Caia jumped and managed to clasp her fingers over the edge of the brim. Her bare arms were taught, and glistened with sweat, the cuffs of her jacket bunched around her armpits. Not for the first time, Calix, who had only recently become competitive in rounds of arm wrestling with her, was impressed by her strength. She was short, and light which helped, but she also had a vice-like grip from years of directing the blower. For someone who wasn’t shy about changing in front of the group – like everyone else – she did keep herself covered the rest of the time, even when they were sweltering in vests and shorts. It got warm under the arches. On the occasions they did change together, Calix had noted the triceps, and the thick hamstrings – made more squat perhaps by her short height – and wondered how they’d feel clenched around his waist.

  She pulled herself up and threw her body forward across the hatch.

  “Nice one.” Calix again rubbed the side of his ribs, this time shaking his head.

  “Here goes...” she grabbed the wheel of the hatch and heaved. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Are you going the right way?”

  “Who’s the idiot here?” She stood, braced her legs, bent and tried again, twisting with her whole body. The hiss of air as the wheel turned was loud enough to hear in the cabin, without the aid of the earpiece.

  ***

  “No, before we start messing around with that, let’s at least move it out from under the awning,” said Annora. “Get more light.”

  “What more light do you need?” said Barrick. “Look, this must be something here.”

  Annora knelt down next to him, knee to knee, and almost toppled. She threw out an arm and held herself firm against his rock-steady frame. She reached out, but he flapped at her hand.

  “Don’t...”

  “Really, Rick? You gonna scold me?”

  “Whenever you call me Rick...”

  “Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick...”

  “You see now why I sometimes forget you’re not ten years old anymore, right?”

  “Barrick. Honestly, you’ll see better if you bring it into the sun.”

  “What fucking sun? Maybe if you get your shadow out the way.”

  “Quiet for fuck sake,” said Walker. “There’s enough here you can both work on one. Here, Ann, help me with this one anyway I think you may be right.” He began to lift one end. “Regardless, be good to get one away from the others to study closely.”

  Annora straightened, pushing off Barrick who remained as steady as the crawler in a storm, despite the extra little shove she gave him. Then she helped lift Walker’s hoverbike out into the middle of the hardtop. She wiped her forehead and glanced over towards Ardelia sitting down on a hoverbike of her own.

  “Everything alright, Ardelia?”

  “Just taking a well-earned rest,” she said, smiling.

  “Right then,” said Walker, clapping his hands. “That’s better. At least now if this thing is solar powered in any way there’s a chance of charging it.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too,” said Annora.

  Barrick twisted his back to them as he tried reaching or unlocking or pressing something.

  The roar of the crawler rang out as it reversed sideways, back on the edge of the supposed dome.

  “Let’s try again,” said Walker, pressing the starter button. Somewhere within the dents and halted rust of metal it churned, a howl of wind suddenly cut off. This time it didn’t lift from the ground at all. “Completely spent. Must be a way to fuel it or charge it.” But there were no other buttons on the dash besides the starter. On the grips at the end of the handle were levers, and the grips themselves turned. But in this state they did nothing.

  Annora checked out the rear, bent down and lifted up a lid. It was nothing but a simple compartment for storing things. An empty one, too.

  “Hey,” said Barrick. “These things have stands.” He lifted the front end of his and reached beneath, pulling down a kickstand. As he did the same to the other side, Annora and Walker lifted theirs’ up and found they had one too.

  “At least now we don’t have to bend down,” she said.

  “Dumb design if you had to sit like you were shitting on it every time you wanted to use it,” said Walker. He saddled his leg over it, clutched the handlebars and looked around. “Any ideas?”

  “Underneath?”

  Walker reached a hand down, running it along the underside, and then the other side. “Here’s something.” After he did whatever he did, he sat up straight as a bolt of metal slid from the side of the vehicle and an arm extended out. Then the same on the other side. The arms extended, and then again on hinges, stretching like limbs after a deep sleep. As the last hinge unclasped and an arm extended, a magnificent gold and silver foil unrolled between them. The gold reached for the sun that didn’t exist, and the silver reflected the solid ground. A holographic heads-up display suddenly appeared between the handlebars with the words ‘CHARGING’ written across it.

  “A sailbike,” said Ardelia.

  “No,” said Annora, who had to retreat as the wings opened up. Now she reached
out towards it, stroking the bones of the wings. “A dragonfly.”

  “A dragonfly?” asked Barrick.

  “Yeah, they had long bodies, like this, with even longer, beautiful wings. And they hovered too.”

  “That... is... fucking... amazing,” said Calix.

  “Welcome back,” said Annora. “Look what we found.”

  “Hmm. Not bad. I might be able to top it though.”

  Walker turned in his seat and looked towards the crawler. Calix’s head was peering out of the cabin again, but Caia was nowhere to be seen. “Where is she?” he said quietly.

  “Caia? She’s underground.”

  ***

  Walker fiddled with his earpiece until he found channel three and called for Caia, agitated and muttering under his breath.

  Annora strolled beneath the nearest solar sail, fingers outstretched. Fingertips touched fingertips in the upside-down world, the sail itself cool to the touch and glossy. Barrick joined her in the mirror, looking up at himself looking down. “So that’s why we have no mirrors on the crawler,” he said, running fingers through his beard.

  Annora laughed. “Cal, you should come down. What more you gonna do up there?”

  “Already on my way.”

  “Do you think this’ll work?”

  Barrick tested the strength of the arms. “I should think so. The solar charge would be better if we actually had sunlight, but if the crawler can get power from it, so should this. Never seen anything like it before though.”

  “I wonder if it can also act as a condenser.”

  “Maybe. Maybe you can rig something up and collect water. Could’ve made a good shelter too back in the days of sun and rain and whatever else. Why don’t you help me with the others? Get them all charging.” He headed over to the awning and Annora followed. Ardelia stood up from hers and joined them. As Walker made his way over to the hardtop’s edge, trying to raise Caia, the three of them lifted and moved the dragonflies out into the open. One by one they activated the sails until sixteen silver-and-gold wings were gently and softly undulating in the low breeze. Just as the last one unfurled, Calix joined them, walking gingerly but trying not to show any discomfort.

  “Welcome to the party,” said Annora.

  “Thanks for inviting me.”

  “One-handed?”

  Calix smiled, but his gaze was on the sails as he entered the faint shadow of the nearest one. “With some difficulty,” he muttered, referring to the ladder they used to get in and out of the crawler.

  “If it comes to it, we can lift you in the bucket to the top of the crawler to get back in.”

  “Funny,” he said as he reached for one of the sails. “Finally... something worth finding.”

  Annora joined him in the upside-down world and he raised his left arm to put it round her, but she caught the wince in his eyes and grabbed it, pushing it down. She shifted to his other side and pulled his arm around her, and together they looked up.

  “This is so weird,” he said.

  “We’re such a state.”

  They stared into their counterparts’ eyes; Annora realised they’d never seen each other like this, not since childhood standing in front of the mirrors of the shower room, and never embracing. This reflection of themselves was more than a mirror. She wished she could freeze it, hold it in her hands like a photograph. It was them, and yet not; Calix’s eyes were the eyes of Calix the boy, reshaped uncannily within this grown-up face. She dared not leave them, but if she did, to stare into her own eyes, she knew she’d see a girl staring back at her, wondering where she was. Eventually, it was Calix who pulled his eyes away to look at something else, the dark hardtop perhaps. Annora caught Ardelia’s reflection from the corner of her eye as she floated in beneath the sail.

  Her stomach flipped and her heart shuttered and suddenly she felt a swell of mild annoyance. With Ardelia’s presence, Calix dropped his arm, turned and smiled. In the reflection he was suddenly far away from Annora, walking towards the bulk of the dragonfly, leaving her and Ardelia staring up while staring down.

  Dropping her gaze, Annora frowned, letting go of the anger inside.

  “These are pretty sturdy,” said Calix, approaching Barrick.

  “I think they must be. Look at the patchwork repairs on the chassis of the dragonfly,” he replied, glancing at Annora, “and then look at the sails. Not a tear in them. Some scratches on the ribs...” he laughed. “Unlike you!”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  “Well, whatever you want to call them. Some scratches and dents but the sails themselves are in perfect condition. I wouldn’t mind betting you could ride this with them fully unfurled.” He pointed at one of the sails, gesticulating. “Look at the way it’s designed. Aerodynamic, smooth lines, the wind would just fly right over it.”

  “That would be a sight.”

  “Constant charge mode. These things have been underground so long they’re almost completely depleted. I bet in normal service this thing can last for days after a full charge, flying across the sands.”

  “If it’ll work on the sand. It might just blow a big hole!” said Ardelia.

  “It’ll work. These are built from scrap, by someone with knowledge of the technology, after everything went to shit. If they didn’t work, you wouldn’t build eight of them now would you?”

  “I can’t believe I broke my ribs right before this discovery. Whoever goes first has to let me ride behind them.”

  Below

  “What did you find then?” asked Annora.

  “Looks like a hidden entrance. Caia disappeared down the hatch. Could be right under our feet as we speak. You should go take a look.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  The clouds above were beginning to darken; some days, like today, it seemed like they were hanging lower, as though swollen, the shaded grey fabric of the underside rippling sometimes black, sometimes white. Annora glanced up as she made her way over to the edge. It was definitely one of those days. She’d watched a film growing up, quite a few times, about different weather phenomena, and on one occasion had sought a meteorological textbook from the small library they had down in the storeroom. In it, she had seen all variety of clouds described, and the nearest she had found that bore any resemblance to the ones sitting over Sanctum were the thunderclouds, something the book called cumulonimbus. But even they were too structured and uniform. She had wondered then, and wondered now, if what was above was really a cloud? Clouds were generally white and fluffy, at least in the films, and those above were thick and dense, almost viscous. Even when she was aboveground, she could look up sometimes and still feel as though she was underground.

  At the edge of the hardtop she spotted the metallic structure – a square corridor that lead beneath from a hatched extension. Was that hatch inside or outside the Agridome? she thought as she dropped down to the roof of the corridor. It clanged solidly beneath her boots.

  “What channel do I want, Calix?”

  “Three,” he said. “Pretty cool, huh?”

  “Depends where it goes. I’m switching over, maybe we all should.”

  “Yeah, yeah, if we need you.”

  “Don’t go racing off without us now.”

  “Oh we would never dream of it,” said Barrick.

  Annora jumped and caught the edge of the rim, then pulled herself up. A few years ago and she could barely pull herself up on a door frame. Rations and work will do that, she thought. Kneeling next to the hatch, she switched to channel three and peered down. “Anyone there?”

  There was a crackle of white noise and then Walker said “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” said Annora. “Thought I’d join you.” She dropped her legs into the hatch and then lowered herself. There were rungs in the side of the inner wall which she could use to climb down. “Do I need to go back and get a torch?”

  “No,” said Caia, “there’s autolighting.”

  “It’s dim, obviously running on reserves, but enough,” said Walk
er.

  “Haven’t stopped you two in the middle of an argument have I?”

  “No,” they said in unison.

  “Everything’s fine, we’re just scoping the place out,” said Walker. “What’s happening above?”

  “The sails are charging the dragonflies.” Ahead of Annora, thin strips of light ran parallel in the upper and lower corners of the corridor.

  “Dragonflies?” said Caia.

  Annora headed for the hatch at the far end. “More interesting than hoverbike or sailbike.”

  “You on your way?” asked Walker.

  “Yeah, just the other side of the second hatch.”

  “Okay,” he said, followed by the sound of grunting. “It was a little hard to budge.”

  As she neared the hatch she could see it opening towards her. Brighter light fell into the corridor, along with Walker’s shadow. “Smells funny,” she said.

  “The smell of death that’s been trapped for too long,” said Caia.

  “There are bodies?”

  “None that we’ve seen so far,” said Walker.

  Annora groaned. Maybe she’d be better off staying up top. Walker gave way as she crossed the threshold into the holding room. It was brighter because there were more lights, not stronger illumination. At the thought of dead bodies her breathing had shallowed, but now she took a deep breath. “Still smells funny, but not dead body funny. Kinda cold and medicinal?”

  “I think it’s just being hermetically sealed. The air was kept cool and circulating through the vents, and when they stopped working, the old air-co has perhaps slowly leaked throughout the whole complex.”

  “Yeah, that kinda smells like it.”

  “With the dead bodies too, don’t forget them,” said Caia.

  Ignoring Caia, Annora asked “Where are we, exactly?” The room was large, with desks and filing cabinets, even some artwork on the walls and vases long devoid of flowers. The walls were white, and clean; in fact – she walked along the side of one desk, running a finger along it – there was no dirt or dust anywhere.

  “Part of the municipal wing, if I had to guess,” said Walker. He busily opened drawers and cupboard doors.